Funcling II

Today’s post is extremely belated (and short) because I spent the day being a fun uncle with my niece and nephews, all of whom are under the age of five.  As you can imagine, I’m a bit drained, though not as much as usual.  Perhaps resting for two weeks has increased my stamina, rather than causing all of my minuscule muscle mass to atrophy a la George Costanza’s ill-conceived “Summer of George.”

With all the chaos swirling about in the ether of our civic life, spending time with family always reminds me of the truly important things in life.  Of course, that also makes me even angrier with white hot rage when I ponder the would-be progressive overlords who seek to destroy everything I love and cherish simply because I have the “wrong” politics, skin color, and sexual orientation.  If some child molester in drag gets hired to read storybooks to my niece and nephews at their local library (they wouldn’t be there in the first place, of course, but you know how these programs can pull a bait-and-switch on you), I’ll be the pitchfork-wielding peasant leading the mob to eject Frankenstein’s Monster from the premises.

But I digress.  Tonight is not a night for white hot rage—there’s plenty of time for that later.  I enjoyed a long day of playing and baby hugs, all capped off with sausage dogs and ice cream.  My niece even shared most of her strawberry waffle cone with the older of my two nephews after he broke down in tears because he “chose wrong” for dessert (he was heartbroken when everyone else had some kind of scooped ice cream in a cone when he had already devoured his stick-based ice cream treat).  The ice cream was Tillamook brand, so that was a real act of love.

I know those cuties will have to face the real world one day, but I am so glad they can be innocent and playful, and that my brother and sister-in-law are raising them right.  My niece can play and sing the chorus of “The First Noel” with accuracy on her little toy piano.  Hopefully she can start learning to play the real thing soon.  She can also play a good chunk of the Rugrats theme song—pretty impressive!

So while we watch Minneapolis burn and failed rapper warlords reign over white guilt-ridden hipsters in Seattle, let’s remember the important things in life—and why they merit defending.